Good Films unveils ambitious six-film slate

Miriam Segal, the producer behind Viggo Mortensen drama Good, has resurfaced with a slate of six new films with budgets of up to $55m.

The former BBC Films exec has raised £2.2m ($3.5m) from private capital via an EIS scheme through development company George Films.

Shooting will begin on the first project, Invisible, through her UK-based production company Good Films in mid-June.

Mexican director Everado Gout (Days of Grace) will direct the $13m feature, which will be shot on location in London and is based on a play by Tena Stivicic

Speaking to Screen at the AFM in Santa Monica, Segal described Invisible as “a beautiful love story with a violent ending”.

“The films on our slate are all stories that have a resonance with the modern world and are the opposite of an atypical British film,” she said.

“Thematically, they comment on economic migration or bank corruption and are more akin to an American independent slate than a British one. We won’t be making period films. No one in any of my movies wears a bonnet.”

It centres on Godwin, who moved to New York from Zimbabwe when it was still in the grip of dictatorship (the crocodile of the title is Robert Mugabe). But 9/11 sees his freedoms threatened once more as he becomes a suspected terrorist overnight.

Postcard Killers is based on the crime novel jointly written by bestselling authors James Patterson and Liza Marklund.

The story begins when the daughter of a New York detective is murdered while they are on holiday in Rome. It is part of a pattern of murders across Europe, in which the killer sends a postcard to the local newspaper, embroiling a local Swedish reporter in the drama.

It will shoot in early 2015, with a budget of $25m, across Stockholm, Berlin and New York.

The final title, The F**k It Button, is a wry look at the life of a woman who refuses to stick to the conventional path of life.

Based on a screenplay by Polly Steele, it will shoot in London, France and Africa in summer 2015 with a budget of $10m.

Cottage industry

Speaking about her international ambitions for Good Films, Segal said: “The British film industry needs to be more like an industry.

“I don’t want to criticise it, but there should be a greater sense of market and should not simply rely on believing there may be a niche audience.

“The films I have made have always been financed by America. There’s no indulgence of romanticism about it. There is passion there but there also has to be good business sense. There’s no point making a film about a chair if people don’t want to see films about chairs.”

She added: “Our investors are already talking about the next slate and we are just about to go into development on our seventh project. I can’t say anymore except that I couldn’t turn it down.”

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